President Trump tours National Museum of African American History & Culture

Ben Carson and President Trump pose as they tour an exhibit about Carson at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on Tuesday morning. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Trump visited the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington Tuesday morning — and spoke out against anti-Semitism.

"Anti-Semitism is horrible. And, it's gonna stop and it has to stop," he said, promising to visit the Holocaust Museum soon.

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Trump had refused to denounce the rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes since his election, but changed that stance Tuesday, a day after the fourth wave this year of hoax bomb threats made against Jewish community centers nationwide. In addition, as many as 200 headstones were damaged or tipped over at a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis late Sunday or early Monday.

"The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil," Trump said.

Donald Trump in the White House

White House press secretary Sean Spicer didn't say specifically what Trump would do to combat anti-Semitism, but he promised that Trump would be forceful on the issue.

"The President's going to do what what's talked about since election night. It's through deed and action. Talk about how he can unify this country and speak out against hate, anti-Semitism, racism, and he's going to continue to do that," Spicer said.

"He's going to be a President who brings people together."

The comments were too little, too late for the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which called Trump's remarks a "Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration."

President Trump looks at an an exhibit on slavery during the American revolution Tuesday. (JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

Spicer said he was disappointed by the statement. "It's ironic that no matter how many times he talks about this that it's never good enough," he said.

Trump made the comments at the new Smithsonian museum, where he was joined by Housing & Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is featured in an exhibit in the museum. Also in the group were Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the Senate's only black Republican, White House staffer and former "Apprentice" contestant Omarosa Manigault, and Trump's daughter Ivanka. The group was led on a tour by museum director Lonnie Bunch.

Asked about the museum during the tour, Trump said it was "fantastic."

"This tour was a very meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms," he said.